DeCord gave him an envelope stuffed with money and a wink too clandestine for words. “Silence,” he said.
Frye threw it back. DeCord shrugged and headed out the door. They came and went within an hour. It was magic.
Lucia, Frye found out later, had been on a CIA jet to Washington thirty minutes after he left her.
Frye collected Dien’s suitcases from the cave and drove to Bennett’s house.
Li was helping Donnell Crawley pack his things. Frye watched them, each with a pasteboard box, heading toward his old pickup truck.
Li’s smile was minor, drained, as he walked up. She hugged him and kissed his cheek.
“I’m glad you’re staying,” he said.
“Where else would I go?”
“Memories are tough.”
“No memories is worse.”
“What about the resistance?”
She looked at him a long while. “I’ll continue. It’s all I know.”
“You still want the leading role?”
She nodded, wavy black hair catching the sun. It looked almost blue. “Our fight will never end.”
Frye looked at the meager possessions in Donnell’s truck: a little black-and-white TV, a radio, the bed and sheets, a bunch of potted plants, flatware, clothes.
Li looked at him. “I couldn’t express my thoughts on the boat yesterday,” she said. “But what I wanted to say was that he was the kindest man I ever knew. Even in the war, he had kindness in him. He tried to preserve it, and he knew he was losing it. When I began to know Bennett, it was like a new world I didn’t know was there. He had passion, too. Maybe too much. What he did to Lam... it was a sin that God tricked him into committing. I don’t know why. A test? I forgive him, Chuck. But he never forgave himself.”
Frye walked around to the cottage, where Donnell was packing. He helped him with some boxes, a trunk, then a dozen or so plants from the yard. Donnell placed them carefully on the truck bed, then spread some blankets to keep them from sliding around. Frye watched his big hands make the gentle arrangements.
“Going home, Donnell?”
Crawley wiped his forehead, nodded.
“Sure you don’t want to stay?”
“I never liked it here.”
“What kept you?”
Crawley considered. “Lots of people thought it was Bennett takin’ care of me because of my brains, but that wasn’t the whole story. I was lookin’ after him too. Now he’s dead and I’m going home.”
Frye carried another pot to the van and set it in. “Thanks, Donnell.”
“I couldn’t see him carrying all that on himself, Chuck. Benny was the kind of guy who thought everything was his doing.” Crawley leaned against the bumper and folded his arms across his chest. He looked at the ground. “I couldn’t let him believe that. We was all responsible. It was me actually threw Huong from that chopper. That was one of my jobs. It’s one of those things you don’t feel good about, even if it’s your country they say you’re doing it for. If I’da killed him proper, Benny’d still be here right now. We’d be drinking beers or something. I think what I can realistically do now is just forget. It’s time for me to go on to the next thing.”
The silence got long. Frye finally said the only thing he really felt was true. “You did good, Donnell.”
Crawley looked bemused. “Don’t think I’ll ever really believe that.”
“I do.”
“You weren’t there.”
“It doesn’t matter. I know.”
“Thanks anyways.” Crawley shook his hand. “You gonna write all this up and get famous?”
“I don’t know yet. Got some offers, though.”
“Might be a good thing, since he was your brother. Anybody else just get the story all wrong. Papers don’t seem much interested anyway.”
Donnell got into the van and started it up. “I got a long drive. Take care of Li, now. Take care of yourself too. Good luck in the contest.”
“Will do.”
“Well, ‘bye, Chuck.”
The Committee to Free Vietnam headquarters was busy. Frye pulled up and parked, eyeing the group of young Vietnamese hustling about.
Tuy Nha came out, smiled, and hugged him. She had lost weight and her skin was pale. For the first time, she looks like a woman and not a girl, Frye thought. She looked at him and for a brief moment their silence said what words never could: something about Bennett and Xuan, about loss and the stars at night, about going on. There wasn’t really much that was say able. The silver wave necklace he’d given her in the hospital now shined against her breast.
“Billingham at the Ledger gave me back my job,” Frye said. “He said he owed me one, so I told him to hire you, too. Rewrite desk to start. You’d learn fast. Lousy money. Interested?”
She looked down, then up again. “I am. Thank you, Chuck.” A young man walked past them, and she smiled at him. The young man smiled back.
“I’ve got the money. Have you figured out a way to get it back to who gave it in the first place?”
She nodded. “We have a good lawyer, and time. Many people have come forward to claim what is theirs.”
They leaned against the Cyclone. “What about the network?” Frye asked.
Nha sighed. “If even one POW comes home Friday, there will be a new era. Maybe it is time to stop fighting for what we don’t have, and start building what we do have. Maybe it is time to fight harder. Is it really possible to go back? I don’t know. We never knew. It’s a time now to think.”
Frye opened the trunk, then swung open the tops of the suitcases.
Nha looked from Frye to the money and jewels, then back to Frye. She smiled oddly, eyes glimmering, and Frye saw in them something of his brother’s passion, a look telling him that Nha was and always would be a follower of her own agendas.
A moment later, a dark limousine rolled up. It stopped and a back window lowered. General Dien’s withered face looked out with curiosity, and, Frye thought, maybe longing too. You didn’t lose it, you old bastard. You sold it. Then the glass rose and the car slid away.
“I’d put that somewhere safe if I were you.”
“I will,” said Nha.
Detective John Minh was sitting in his cubicle when Frye walked in. It was late in the evening, three days after Bennett had been buried, the week of the scheduled release of American POWs from Vietnam. Minh had sounded subdued on the phone.
“Those three bodies they found up in Mojave weren’t locals. I can’t prove it, but I know they weren’t.”
Frye said nothing.
Minh stood up and poured two cups of coffee. “I’m sorry, Chuck. I suppose that doesn’t mean much now. I knew your brother had a lot going on, but I didn’t know how much until a day ago. I got curious about all the refugees he and Li sponsored into this country. I wondered where they all went, whose property they were paying rent on, how they were living. I knew Bennett was into real estate, so I did a little legwork, a little paperwork, too. He owned thirty-five homes in Little Saigon. Made the payments on every one of them himself. That’s thirty-five families he set up here and never charged them a cent. He paid the utilities and insurance too — everything.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I thought it was all just guns and supplies. I talked with the president of the Vietnamese Scholarship Fund of Orange County yesterday. Bennett had willed them money in the event of his death. One million dollars.”
Minh looked out his small window. Frye saw sadness in the detective’s eyes. “When the FBI started giving me directions, I thought I’d take orders like a good cop. But later, when they started pushing me to arrest Vo, clamp down on Bennett’s gunrunning, and denied even the possibility that Thach’s men were behind it all, I got suspicious. John, they said, we need you for disclosure control at the back end of this operation. John, the bureau is keeping an eye on you for possible federal work in the future. How would an assignment with the Asian Task Force sound to you? I had two legitimate sightings of Thach’s men! I had others worth checking out. But the bureau sat on me, did the interviews themselves, and nothing happened. I let them run over me, Frye, and that makes me angry. I’ll never let it happen again. Ever.”